


The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

by hulksicle



Category: Elementary (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:45:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulksicle/pseuds/hulksicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson is hard on Sherlock Holmes. To do her job she must remain in control of the situation, but what happens when Sherlock deduces that the assertive Joan isn't as dominant as she pretends? (rated M for potential future smut and the mention of tingly genitals.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

The bees were one of the more curious aspects of Sherlock. Joan didn’t understand why they meant so much to the man but as his recovery buddy she had accepted them as a fact of life with him. She even supposed, hoped, that they were therapeutic and would aid in his recovery. Conceded to the constant dripping of honey that seemed to get everywhere, seemed to worm its way into every corner of the apartment and leave a sticky sweetening residue behind.  
She had no idea.  
The first time it had happened was after a case. She was furious. Sherlock had been resolute on being a complete bastard to every person they spoke to, with the shining exception of the actual criminal. He’d looked the man straight in the face and declared him “Brilliant.”  
She’d punched him then.  
Square in the face, his nose was probably broken, and had taken the subway home because he had made her leave the car. Again. And then she stood in the hallway of the filthy hole he called a home with honey making her shoes tacky against the sticky wood floors. Floors that she supposed had once been quite nice before Sherlock Holmes had taken up bee keeping on the roof. Her jacket was rumpled and smelled of the homeless man who’d sat next to her on the train; piss and beer and unwashed despair. What a Tuesday night, and damn if she wasn’t starting to think that having people die on her table was a better way to spend an evening.  
Of course that wasn’t true. The second she thought it she’d felt guilty and paused in the sticky mess to collect herself and calculate if the drop from her bedroom window would be enough to bring about the end of this shitty night or if she’d need to walk up to the roof. In the end she settled on opening a beer and avoiding the suicide attempt because she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to risk being permanently crippled or seeing Sherlock again more.  
She was on her fourth when she heard his footfalls approaching the sparse living room. She was feeling a bit buzzed and had, idiotically, shrugged off her rehab buddy Watson persona in favor of her sulking Joan persona. She fought to gather herself into the professional Joan Watson keeper of the giant ass known as Sherlock Holmes but found her skill lacking.  
No, she was caught with her pants down. Maybe, she hoped, he wouldn’t notice.  
He was Sherlock Holmes though, so of course he noticed. His face went from confrontational, to surprised, to concerned, and from analytical all the way back to the first. She shouldn’t have expected him to be kind about this. She’d been a hard ass, and to be honest kind of a cold bitch, she sighed.  
“Tonight is not the night Sherlock.”  
“Oh but I think it is Joan.” His expression was mischievous, and his mouth turned up at the edges.  
“Fuck off ok? I’m not in the mood.”  
“I can tell; this suits you much better Dr. Watson.” He motioned, his hand waving around in the air. She wondered what it looked like when he played violin, his hands making frantic patterns in the air around him. “Masks are so tedious when anyone with a decent number of IQ points can see beneath them.”  
“So you can see through my mask, very clever, or brilliant, or whatever compliment you’re so tactlessly fishing for. Now could you leave me alone? I live here too and I’m allowed to sulk after a shitty day.”  
“Beneath,” he corrected.  
“Sorry what?”  
“It’s a good mask, I can see beneath it, not through it.” He sat on the floor and began pulling at his shoes like a five year old who hadn’t yet figured out how to do it standing yet. “Do you know what I see?”  
She wanted to punch him again. Right in the center of his swollen face, the nose had been set, not professionally but all the same. Perhaps she could make it so that no one would be able to pop his pretty face back into working order again. Instead she took the bait.  
“What do you see?”  
“Guilt.” He grinned at her and stood up in his stocking feet. Padding over to her as his teeth seemed to multiply exponentially with the growing smile. It was feral, and a bit frightening. She wondered if she needed to have him drug tested again.  
“We’ve been through this already.” She rolled her eyes and made to get up, his arms on either side of her halting the progress. He gripped the back on the couch and leaned in.  
“You desire penance, you feel you deserve to be punished.” He licked his lips, the teeth disappearing for a split second.  
“I actually like my job you know,” she pushed past him and made for the kitchen. “Or at least I did before I met you.”  
His face crumpled a bit. It wasn’t true. Not all of it, not how she’d said it. He knew that, which was why the smile came back, but sadder this time. She did not like where this was going, she was never going to be drunk enough for this. The bottle of scotch was behind the saltines where she’d hidden it a week ago. It filled the little plastic tea cup easily enough; the bright pink kitten on the side looked ashamed so she turned it the other way round. She had yet to deduce why the collection of china was so, eclectic.  
“Oh Joan, we both know I’m difficult, and that you’ve never liked this job. You’ve only ever been attracted to the idea that you’re helping; punishing yourself with the worst job, watching other people succeed while being constantly reminded that you failed, and trying to do the least amount of damage possible in the meantime.” He poured himself a scotch in a green and red Christmas mug and downed it before refilling. “Mucking about with my things again Joan.”  
“Yeah well, you’re a recovering drug addict.”  
“And you’ve got a kink for being tied up and spanked but I’ve not stolen and hidden your bondage tape. Besides,” He finished his second drink and pulled a beer from the fridge. “I’m addicted to cocaine, not alcohol.”  
There was no air in the room. Somehow Sherlock had sucked it all out when he’d opened his mouth. She was suffocating, she was going to die of lack of air in a shitty kitchen in a rundown apartment smelling of hobo and scotch with a children’s tea cup in her hand. Talk about penance.  
The slap was harsh. Her cheek stung and she inhaled sharply from the pain. Sherlock Holmes had hit her and she sucked in a deep breath to yell at him and- OH. Oh, she could breathe again. The panic in her stomach had crawled down out of her chest and she could breathe. Although it threatened to climb its way back up as the sensations of her cheek made their way down her neural pathways to her brain which deemed it appropriate to alert her southern most regions.  
Thank God she wasn’t a man.


End file.
